Back in the days of the original trilogy Kenner released an incredible amount of figures, vehicles, playsets, and accessories so incredibly awesome that to this day many of those items are better than anything produced in recent years. Some of the molds for the vehicles were reused countless times for the modern era line which kicked of in the mid 90s and is still going strong. Unfortunately the last couple of years Hasbro had seemed to run out of ideas on how to bring back a sense of excitement to the original trilogy product line and I truly lost interest in Hasbro's Star Wars offerings. Most of the Clone Wars stuff is just terrible and it seemed to become the focus of Hasbro's product output. Fortunately this year Hasbro has gone back to the original trilogy characters and vehicles in a big way in order to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. To end the year a third wave of vintage figures has just started to show up on the pegs based on Return of the Jedi.
The last two Vintage waves were pretty mediocre, but Hasbro has finally improved things with this Jedi wave. The figures look better than anything we've gotten from Hasbro since 2008's Legacy collection. Two of my favorite figures got the vintage treatment in this wave: the rebel commando and Wicket W. Warrick. I just picked these up this week at Walmart which has all the vintage package figures on sale for $6.99.
When the first Star Wars film came out I wasn't alive yet. During Empire's release I was merely 3 months old. When Jedi hit theaters I was 3 years old so this was my introduction to Star Wars. I loved Wicket and the Ewoks (still do) and the first Star Wars action figures I ever owned were from this movie. The rebel commando was on of my favorites and as much as I loved that figure back in the day this new vintage edition from Hasbro puts the original figure to shame. The sculpt and articulation are fantastic. Paint job is pretty awesome and all the accessories including the helmet, holster, backpack and trench coat are top notch. There's so much play value added when figures come well accessorized. I really wish the original line from our childhood had as many weapons and accessories as we're able to get with the new figures. Back then we'd get one weapon or accessory per figure and some figures wouldn't even come with any at all.
For the $6.99 sale price these figures are a great deal. I think their regular price of $9.99 is a rip off. I might pay that price for these ones but most of the other figures in the previous waves are reissues of figures we've gotten before without any improvements at all so to have to pay nearly 10 dollars for them just because they come in a vintage looking card is rather ridiculous.
Wicket is super awesome and for a small Ewok figure he's surprisingly articulated. The face sculpt is the best sculpt I've ever seen for an Ewok figure. Again, Hasbro has done a great job with the accessories, not only do we get his wooden staff, we also get a nice pouch for him to put his berries or whatever he picks on the forest and an extra hood in a different style and color.
If you already have a Wicket figure you can put his green hood on and use him as a different background Ewok which is pretty cool if you're trying to build an army of furry, adorable Ewoks.
I was rather disappointed with the Empire vintage wave, but this Jedi wave has restored my faith in Hasbro. Unfortunately the other waves hitting shelves next are based on episodes 1,2, and 3. I have no clue why they would put those figures out again but this time on "vintage" packaging from the 80s. Those figures are not part of the vintage era. To me it just seems like Hasbro is looking for an excuse to get more figures out again from recent years and justify an MSRP of $9.99 so I feel like every time Hasbro does something good like this Jedi wave they go and do 3 stupid things in a row like they're about to do with the upcoming waves.
The rest of this current wave from Return of the Jedi also includes Jedi Luke and Admiral Ackbar. I'll be taking a look at those two figures in a future post.
3 comments:
Even though wicket does look awesome, i'd rather they re-made the chief ewok (the one with the head dress) since that's the one I had when i was a kid. Saw some pics of the jedi luke the other day too, and they looked great. I'm thinking i might have to pick up a few guys from this line :) Oh, and what's that about Bobba Fett on Wicket's card? mail away promotion or something?
Great photos!!
Thanks for the comments. Yes, there's also a mail-away Bobba Fett with the missile firing mechanism we never got back in the day. As soon as I get mine in the mail I'll post a review and plenty of pics.
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